Another Successful Bass Trip

I arrived at the boat at 5:15 AM and it was cold...33 degrees and no wind to speak of. All of the flags within view were totally limp. The water level was very low due to the strong west winds and the gunwale was about six inches below the dock...luckily there was enough water to float out of the slip. We had to cancel a few trips last year this time due to not enough water to get out of the slip. I started the engine and started loading the day's gear onto the boat. Soon the engine was warmed up and with the heat on the pilothouse started warming up to a nice and toasty 68 degrees.

After finishing storing gear and readying some items for the trip we were ready to shove off. Once the crew arrived we were underway.

We broke the inlet about 6:15 just before sunrise. There were birds starting to take flight in anticipation of an easy meal. The fish finder was all lit up and we started jigging up shorts and bluefish right away. As soon as the sun started to rise above the water's edge the birds started diving and screeching. And the fleet of boats soon showed up. As it started getting more crowded we started moving south chasing the fast moving schools of migrating fish.

We continued to see fish breaking the surface all over and the spray of fleeing peanut bunker from the ravenous bluefish. Moving from pod to pod of bait we just followed the marks and jigged most of the day. Eventually we ended up off Top of the Mast where we had our best bite of the day. On one drift we produced about a dozen short bass, one nice 31" keeper and only one bluefish. Continuing to work that area produced non-stop action of mostly short bass with a few bluefish mixed in. At one point I reeled up leaving five or ten feet of line out, leaving my jig in the water to net Anthony's fish and a follower just slammed the jig.

By the end of the day we ended up just North of the bathing beach. We must have reached that area just as the bite died off as we had little luck in that area. It also started to cloud up a little more and the temperature was starting to drop. Which seemed to signal the end of the bite for us. We continued to work our way North and worked several schools of bait and fish but did not have the action that we had earlier in the day when it was a few degrees warmer. This seemed strange to me since the water was still 53 degrees. Usually we see this type of action when it is later in the year and the air and water temps are much cooler.

I would have included a picture of myself holding my fish here but there was an unforseen camera malfunction...or user error. We are not clear on what really happened.

It was a great day on the water with very pleasant sea conditions despite NOAA's forecast (no surprise there) and the non-stop action only topped off the day. We ended the day with a total of two keeper bass-with 9 and 12 pound fish. We had several that were between 1/4 and 1/8 of an inch short and about two dozen or so fish that were 26 to 27.5 inches in length. Mixed in were probably near 40 to 50 bluefish.